Blackboard and Campus Pipeline to Collaborate for Benefit of Mutual Customers

Blackboard Inc. announced today that Campus Pipeline has joined the Blackboard Building Blocks program to fully enable the Campus Pipeline web platform to work and integrate with Blackboard’s e-Education platform, Blackboard 5.

The alliance unites two of the e-education industry’s leading products to allow greater choice, flexibility and convenience to higher education institutions.

Through Blackboard’s open-architecture initiative, Building Blocks, Campus Pipeline will be able to allow its customers to tightly integrate their Blackboard e-Education platform with their Campus Pipeline web platform, which connects to their existing back office administrative system.

As a result, clients will experience significantly greater access to campus services and information – from the back office to the front-end systems students experience every day (e.g.. online course environment, campus-wide calendaring, student organization Web sites, etc.)

“Our Building Blocks program is about offering our clients extensible solutions for their e-Education requirements,” said Michael Chasen, Chief Executive Officer of Blackboard Inc. “This collaboration with Campus Pipeline reflects Blackboard’s commitment to the goals of Building Blocks and the needs of colleges and universities. While Campus Pipeline’s products overlap with Blackboard’s in some areas, they are complementary on others. What matters is client choice.”

“Campus Pipeline has long been committed to providing institutions of Higher Education with open standards based technologies and services necessary to unify their digital campus,” said Tom Lewis, CEO of Campus Pipeline. “For the institutions we serve who have selected Blackboard as their e-Education platform, we are pleased to be able to offer them the level of integration they require through our participation in Blackboard’s Building Blocks program.”

About Blackboard’s Building Blocks Initiative

Blackboard’s Building Blocks initiative, announced in 2000, is the industry’s first open set of API’s and developer services for creating extensions to Blackboard.

From client developed innovations that extend Blackboard into new pedagogical frontiers, to commercial applications from 3rd party providers who speed their growth through Blackboard’s platform technology and client base, Building Blocks represents a springboard for innovation in the e-Education market.

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. was founded to transform the Internet into a powerful environment for teaching and learning. The company offers a complete suite of enterprise software products and services that power a total “e-Education Infrastructure” for schools, colleges, universities and other education providers.

Blackboard solutions deliver the promise of the Internet for online teaching and learning, campus communities, auxiliary services and integration of Web-enabled student services and back office systems.

Blackboard’s two major lines of business, Course & Portal Solutions and Commerce & Access Solutions, are consistently ranked by industry analysts as the market share and customer satisfaction leaders for thousands of academic institutions and a leading number of the Internet’s most popular consumer education sites.

The company is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices and staff across North America, Europe and Asia. Please visit www.blackboard.com for more information.

About Campus Pipeline, Inc.

Campus Pipeline, Inc., an Upside Hot 100 Internet Infrastructure award winner, delivers enterprise software and services to unify the digital campus.

Through the Campus Pipeline Web Platform and the Campus Pipeline web platform product family, more than 100 colleges and universities worldwide have created comprehensive online environments for unifying administrative services, campus news, distance learning and other services within their higher education communities.

Campus Pipeline product development, integration, and strategic partners include Dell, Documentum, iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, JA-SIG, SCT, Sun Microsystems, Talis Information Limited, TIAA-CREF, and WebCT.

Investors, including American Express, Dell Computer Corp, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Inktomi, Lynx Technology, Meritech Capital Partners, and Oak Investment Partners, back the Salt Lake City-based company. For more information, visit www.campuspipeline.com or call 888/682-PIPE.

Campus Pipeline, and the Campus Pipeline logo are trademarks of Campus Pipeline, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.